CCS215 | Emerging Technology, Law and Criminal Justice

This is a standalone elective course designed for students in the B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), LLB (Hons.) and the MPP programmes. It builds upon foundational knowledge from core courses like Constitutional Law and Criminal Law, and offers a critical lens on one of the most pressing issues in contemporary criminal law jurisprudence.

This course examines the intersection of technology, criminal justice, and state power in contemporary India and the Global South. Students will explore how technological advancements – including artificial intelligence, predictive policing, facial recognition, digital surveillance, and e-governance – are transforming criminal justice institutions and processes.

The course foregrounds questions of power, inequality, and marginalization, and examines how technology impacts various stakeholders across the criminal justice system: from crime detection and predictive policing to bail decisions, prison management, and defense lawyering. Special attention is given to how these technologies disproportionately affect marginalized communities defined by caste, gender, class, religion, and other intersecting identities.

The course is approached from a critical, comparative, and socio-legal perspective. It is grounded in the Indian context but draws heavily on comparative scholarship and foundational critical work from USA and Europe to build the theoretical framework.

The course relies on a mix of primary legal materials (case laws and statutes), secondary scholarship (journal articles, book chapters), policy reports, and documentaries. The course deliberately moves from the macro (the theory of state power) to the micro (the impact on an individual’s fundamental rights) and back to the macro (governance and reform).

The pedagogy for this course will be seminar-style, centered on Socratic discussion. Each 2-hour session will involve a brief framing lecture (20-30 minutes) followed by intensive, structured discussion based on the assigned readings. Students will be expected to lead discussions, and group presentations will form a significant component of the evaluation.